Brother, Sister
by charmablackhole
Summary: Slightly AU version of the Chuunin exams from the point of view of the Sand Siblings. Felt like exploring their relationships with each other more. Don't own Naruto, just saying because I'm not repeating that every chapter.
1. The Spiders come crawling out

The shinobi have an unhealthy relationship with power. They are frightened of it, grudging, never able to reach the level of wonder or awe, simply at the level of power. Power is always a weapon and an enemy for them. And that is how Gaara ends up alone, in a village that has now decided they don't want him any more. But as they say, play with fire and you'll get burnt.

Gaara always survives the assassination attempts. Nowadays, he doesn't really care about them. It was only the first attempt that he let hurt him. Now he knows it's a lot easier just to hate everyone. It means he's safe and that he won't get fooled into thinking that someone actually cares about him again. Other people have families and friends. He has no friends and his family is the root of all his problems, of what he is. He knows fathers don't normally try to kill their sons, nor are siblings terrified of their brother. But it's his life and there's not like there's any way to escape it. He did try to hurt himself before, of course, but it didn't worked. Now his life revolves around killing - letting that hatred out - and half hoping he'll actually meet someone strong enough to kill him one day. It's an idle thought, but not repugnant in the least to him. He hopes death is like a form of sleep. He so wants to sleep. But then he hears the whisper of the demon in his mind and he keeps his eyes open and manages to keep walking on it's chakra, when any other person would have collapsed with exhaustion by now.

He's not sure why he bothers sometimes, keeping the demon down, staying awake. No, he does know. It's because that's the one thing he can have control over. He can't avoid the glares or the fear emanating from everyone around him. He can't make his family care one jot about him. He can't bring his mother back. He can't have a life without the demon.

But he refuses to let it control him completely. A futile gesture perhaps, since the sleeplessness will make him insane eventually and let the demon through, but not yet.

When he hears they're going to the village of the Leaf to take part in an exam, he's not particularly interested. Considers refusing just for the sake of it. But then the Kazekage explains the plan. The blood. And Gaara is happy. He will get to kill and kill many in this invasion.

Sometimes he wonders whether the demon is influencing his thoughts, guiding his mind to kill, kill, kill. But then he gets to kill someone and he doesn't care any more, because it feels good.

He sets off in the usual team; Gaara, Temari, Kankuro. They're always together on missions, perhaps because everyone else was too scared to go with Gaara. Temari and Kankuro are no light weights themselves, but everyone is scared of Gaara. They're older than him and probably the people closest to him, which is sad to say, since he would still kill them if they disobeyed him in any way. At least he won't hurt them on a whim, like he will with everyone else. They're lucky, but they won't acknowledge it. Gaara's not one to encourage anything but fear.

They come across some others on their journey to Konohagakure. Gaara wraps them in sand and explodes them before they can say a word. They're not Leaf or Sand, so Gaara decides he's allowed to. Kankuro fishes out a scroll from the blood and splintered bone. He reads it.

"They were going to the Chuunin exam as well."

"Well, less competition then!" Temari replies.

They both glance at him. Gaara ignores them and walks on. He hears them talking about it later in the day, saying he shouldn't have killed them straight off.

"He could've waited," Temari whispers. "In case they had any good intel."

Kankuro shrugs. "Yeah, but it's Gaara."

And that is the end of that.

The thing is, Gaara doesn't have any loyalty to the village of the Sand and doesn't care about it's aims. It just happens to be a convenient place that allows him to kill. Once he finds a way, he'll probably go rogue. Problem is, the Kazekage is even more terrified of a Gaara that doesn't belong to him than having the threat around 24/7. Gaara doesn't want to fight an army yet. So he stays and waits.

What he won't admit, even to himself, is that he still wants the acceptance of the village, of his home. He loves only himself, because none of the others loved him. But he is still a child - still twelve years old - albeit a sociopathic one, and wants that acceptance. At the moment, he is a weapon. He doesn't mind. It's less irritating than being a target for assassination.

Eventually they reach the village, managing not to kill anyone else on the way. Temari shows their papers to the gate-keeper and he lets them in. Gaara watches him, slightly satisfied when he does the little pull back everyone does around him, no matter know polite they think they are.

"Keep that killing intent under control, kid." He says. "It's a friendly competition."

Gaara continues to stare at him. Not many people speak to him these days. People who aren't dead, anyway.

"Come on, Gaara." Kankuro says.

"What's your name?" Gaara asks. Everyone dies eventually.

"Genma." The shinobi replies. "ANBU, at your service."

"Come on!" Kankuro says. Gaara glares at him then walks on. "Jeez, Gaara, do you have to antagonize everyone?"

"What was an ANBU doing gate duty?" Temari asks. "Don't they have more important things to do?"

"Unless they know something…" Kankuro muses. Temari glares at him. "Okay, okay, it's probably just because of the exams. Lots of emerging talent to watch!"

"Maybe. Poor guy, though. Now he's on Gaara's list."

"Yeah, whatever. Just leave him alone for the moment, right?" Kankuro says to Gaara.

Gaara lets some of the sand out, wraps it around Kankuro's arm, starts to close his fist.

"Okay, I'm sorry!" Kankuro yelps. "Do whatever the hell you want!"

The sand slips back into the gourd. Temari watches silently. Kankuro mutters;

"We're supposed to be a team."

Temari just shakes her head at him.

The next day, they decide to explore the village. Well, Gaara decides to find who's most powerful there, and Kankuro and Temari tag along and pretend they're sight-seeing. It's a small village and the two elder siblings get bored pretty fast. Gaara's always bored, except when he's killing, so he doesn't give it any mind. Besides, the demon is whispering louder than it usually does, which interests him a little. He dislikes this truce, where villages are joined and he's not allowed to kill anyone before time. He starts imagining the deaths of the shinobi walking past him - generally, he ignores the civilians completely because there would be no satisfaction in killing one of them. It would be about as exciting as stepping on an ant. He does as the ANBU shinobi said though, covering his basically permanent killing intent - just to amuse himself - but people still give him a wide berth. They know something is different - wrong - about him even though they don't know what it is.

Kankuro and Temari end up ahead of him, which suits him fine. He dislikes it when they try to talk to him.

Then the shouting starts. It's irritating. He sees that Kankuro's holding a squirming kid, Temari has got her fan out, facing a couple of Konoha… genins, he guesses. It's boring. The genins are asking them what right they have to be there and Kankuro's skirting around the answer. Seriously boring and a bit stupid for someone who knows the importance that their mission remains concealed. Gaara wonders idly whether to kill Kankuro or not. He's been annoying quite often lately. Pity he's the Kazekage's son as well and his death would have consequences.

"Let him go." Gaara says and Kankuro drops the kid like he's been burned. Temari folds her fan up, watching Gaara out of the corner of her eye. Wise.

"We're here for the Chuunin exams." She says, flashing the papers impatiently at the genins. She swallows. Gaara's still staring at her. "We're sorry for our actions, if they caused offence." She manages to choke out. She's not sorry at all. The genins are weak - far weaker than the two of them, not to mention Gaara - and deserve whatever they get. But Gaara doesn't like it, for whatever unfathomable reason - she gave up trying to understand him a long time ago - so she has to apologize.

The genins notice. Well, the dark-haired one - whom Temari has to admit is pretty good looking - notices. The one in orange is ranting on about something, the kid hiding behind him. The girl just looks confused. Temari almost feels sorry for her; she's the weakest of them all. Only almost sorry, though. She's been around Gaara long enough to know that power means everything and the weak deserve no pity. Gaara doesn't even notice the girl. He's standing perfectly still in that eerie way he has, his gaze resting on the dark-haired boy. An interested gleam in his eye that Temari knows means yet another victim has been adding to the list.

"Are you entering?" he asks. The boy is about to answer when the orange one interrupts.

"Of course we are! We have to protect the village from him!" he shouts, pointing at Kankuro. The girl pushes the orange boy angrily, which Temari thoroughly approves of, though unfortunately it seems to have no effect. Idiot. Because now Gaara's eyes have narrowed and he's turning his gaze on the orange one.

At some level, Gaara notices the demon is whispering louder and louder now. He thought it was anticipating a worthy opponent, at long last (the assassins were pathetically unprepared) but it seems not to be the dark-haired boy but this ridiculous glaring orange kid who-

Gaara's eyes open wide. Then he smiles.

Temari and Kankuro are backing off, exchanging swift glances; what the hell are we supposed to do if he kills now? They both know Gaara only smiles about killing. Nothing else.

"You're like me." Gaara says.

"What're you talking about?" the orange boy demands. "I'm Konoha and you're Suna, you've got evil team-mates and I've got Sasuke and Sakura-"

Gaara's walking forwards and thankfully - Temari thinks - the orange boy has enough brains to shut up.

"No. We're the same."

The orange boy looks thoroughly confused and not a little intimidated, though trying to hide it.

"I look forward to fighting you." Gaara says, and walks past him.

When he's gone, the orange boy spins to Kankuro and shouts (he always seems to be shouting);

"What the hell was that about?"

Kankuro raises an eyebrow, looking more closely at him, trying to see what interested Gaara. He doesn't seem to find it.

"No idea. But if he wants to fight you, you're screwed. It's probably better to withdraw from the exams now."

"I'm not scared of him!"

Temari's getting tired of the noise.

"Well, you should be." She snaps. She gestures and Kankuro joins her, waving at the little kid and smiling when he hides behind the orange boy again.

"Who is he?" the dark haired boy asks. Temari manages to draw up a smile for him.

"Sabaku no Gaara." She says. "Our brother."

The two of them walk off. Temari annoyed with Kankuro for starting all of it in the first place. They were supposed to be inconspicuous, weren't they? Oh well, she thinks, at least Gaara will wait for the exams to kill now. That's got to be a gift.

The next few days, Temari and Kankuro practice with each other. Gaara doesn't join in. He doesn't need to practice and besides, all his attacks are lethal. Neither of them want to be injured before the exams, to be put at a disadvantage. They don't know the form of the exam yet - that's keep from them until the last minute - but they've reasoned that there will be a chance to fight as a team and individually. It's what makes sense, given the objective of the exam - to find genins worthy of becoming chuunins. Most missions require shinobi to go in groups of three, but in real life, each may find themselves fighting different opponents, without any support from their team-mates. Hence the fighting individually component Kankuro and Temari expect.

They don't know what Gaara expects. He doesn't talk about little things like that. Only declarations of destruction are good enough for him.

Not for the first time, Temari wonders about what it would be like to have a normal little brother. One that doesn't scare her half to death. Oh, she knows the basic rules for survival with Gaara. Don't argue with him. Don't mention you're family. Under no circumstances mention our mother. Or our uncle. Don't annoy him - this is the hardest rule, because Gaara is unpredictable in what he considers annoying. And if he hasn't killed recently - well, you start to feel like the next meal. Kankuro is the worst at this. For some reason that Temari couldn't fathom, Kankuro continued trying to be friendly to Gaara, of all things. Of course, Gaara interpreted that as something else entirely and attacked. The most recent incident ended with Gaara breaking Kankuro's arm. He had also trapped him in a tomb of sand for a whole week at another point before the Kazekage "persuaded" him to let Kankuro go. The "persuasion" consisting of five fully trained shinobi attacking him at once to make Gaara use the sand trapping Kankuro to protect himself. Let it not be said that the Kazekage does not care for his children - all five of the shinobi died.

Temari keeps her interactions with Gaara to a bare, professional minimum because of this. She liked her limbs intact, thank you very much. She very much pitied whoever had to fight Gaara. Temari and Kankuro were, like most genins, happy with defeating opponents. Gaara seemed entirely un-aware of this line in the sand. In his mind, defeating an opponent was killing them. No more, no less. Poor, poor orange kid. He wouldn't even know what hit him. Or would he?

Temari and Kankuro decided to do some research on the orange kid, since Gaara was 100% unlikely to reveal what the "we're the same" comment meant.

Interestingly, they discovered he was well-known. Just describing the orange clothing was enough. More interesting was the reaction. Most of the civilians seemed to deeply hate him while the shinobi hid their emotions better - and they couldn't ask many shinobi, without arousing suspicion - but there was still a lot of emotion towards a kid who couldn't have done much yet. Especially not towards civilians. That kind of thing wasn't allowed. Civilians normally were held apart from the shinobi world - protected but not included. So the hatred couldn't only come from some purely shinobi feud. It included the rest of the village as well.

"They hate him, but they're not afraid of him." Kankuro says.

"Why would they be be afraid?" Temari asks, almost laughing at the image of people running from the orange boy - they do know his name is Naruto now, but "orange boy" seems to fit much better with them.

Kankuro shrugs. "Gaara's interested in fighting him. That means he has to do stronger than us, at least."

"I doubt that. Bark and no bite."

"Perhaps."

They walk a little longer, Temari keeping an one out to ensure they are not followed or watched.

"Everyone hates Gaara." Kankuro says, breaking the silence.

"They're terrified, rightly so."

"Yes, but both. They hate him and are afraid of him."

Temari catches his train of thought. "While they only hate, and aren't afraid of, the orange boy."

"Yeah."

"So 'we are the same' - both hated?"

"Something more than that. Strong and hated and feared, for Gaara at least."

Silence for a couple of minutes.

"Fuck." Temari says.

"Yep."

"There's more than one of them."

"Probably a different type. Our one's unique to the Sand." Kankuro says. They're both careful not to name names, now they see how deep this problem goes.

"What does this mean?" Temari asks. Both of them hear the unspoken end of the sentence; to the plan. Kankuro doesn't answer. "The Kazekage must know." Temari continues.

"Hope so."

"What are we going to do?"

"Continue with everything. It's a good little secret to have, anyway."

"Hmm."

They're almost back at their lodgings when Temari thinks to ask;

"But why aren't they afraid?"


	2. When Blood is Thinner than Water

The first part of the exam passes quickly, all of them cheating on their tests in various different ways.

"What a waste of time," Temari says. Kankuro shrugs. "Well, if someone failed that they don't even deserve to be a genin." She continues.

"Boring," Kankuro agrees. "No one to fight." They both look at Gaara.

The second part of the exam looks more interesting though Temari is a bit scornful of the whole "Forest of Death" thing.

"Sounds like Gaara's idea of fun." Kankuro says. Not in his hearing, obviously. Temari sighs a breath of relief. Gaara's been more edgy than usual since the orange boy incident. More- well, excited is the only word to it. It's just strange. Both of them are waiting for Gaara to lose his patience, and strike. At least in this part of the exam he'll be allowed to. It's weird seeing Gaara being patient. Well, it's scary being around Gaara at all, but they're used to that.

They get an earth scroll and set off.

They don't met anyone else on the first day, which makes Gaara irritable. Temari and Kankuro are actively looking now for others, not just wandering. They'd rather not have Gaara turn on them.

So when on the second day, they meet a team of Amegakure genin, both of them are extremely relieved.

The Mist genin are going through the usual threatening rigmarole when Gaara attacks. He never cared about words much. So Temari and Kankuro have to join in, before they even know what type scroll they have.

They all manage to avoid the curling sand, somehow, the first time. They look slightly unnerved - probably about Gaara breaking the list script - but get over it quickly. The first one uses a jutsu to form multiple kunai into a literal rain of knives. Unfortunately for him, this is exactly the type of attack Temari likes, because it is so easy to dispel with her fan. Which she does. The second one is a bit more difficult to judge. He releases some sort of vapour using a multitude of hand seals, which isn't affected by Temari's wind jutsu. She guesses it's a sort of poison. She keeps an eye on it as it starts creeping towards them. A slow attack, but one that would be useful in an indirect fight, she supposes. Pity that's not the case at the moment.

Kankuro unwraps his puppet, prepares- But then it's not a battle at all, it's slaughter. Gaara breaks the legs of one of the genin and he collapses. The next one he fully encases in sand and implodes. The blood splatters on the trees. None of it touches Gaara, of course. Temari wipes off a large patch from her arm. Kankuro's speckled but he doesn't even bother. At least it's someone else's blood. The last genin is backing off, holding the scroll in front of him.

"Take it! Just let me go."

Temari notes happily that it's a heaven scroll.

Almost absentmindedly, Gaara is crushing the arms of the one with the broken legs. He's not even looking at him when he's doing it. Just watching the last one standing. Then the sand surges forwards, smashes him into a tree. His neck cracks back, breaks. Kankuro picks up the scroll carefully. Gaara turns back to the broken one, layers the sand on top of his face. He thrashes, trying to breathe, and it looks strange, the limbs shivering and broken.

Then there's a sound. It's half a gasp, half a shout.

Gaara smiles, finishes the genin. Walks towards the bushes, the running Konoha team. The sand snakes in front of him.

"Gaara," Temari says. "We've got both the scrolls."

Gaara ignores her completely.

"Come on!" Kankuro says. "We don't need them."

Gaara continues. He can hear the frightened shouts of the Konoha genins. He can almost taste their blood. The three before weren't enough. The demon wants more. He wants more. And Konoha is the allegiance of the… other one. It will be good practice.

Kankuro grabs Gaara by the shoulder.

"Control yourself!" he says. "Let them go."

The sand creeps up around Kankuro hand - the offending one, on his shoulder. Interestingly, Gaara notes, Kankuro doesn't let go.

"It's not worth it. Save your strength for later, we need to finish the exam for now." Both of them know what later is; the invasion.

"I'll kill you." Gaara says. Not do you want to die or you'll die. I'll kill you; direct and brutal. And in case Kankuro doesn't quite understand, he breaks one of his fingers with the sand.

"Fuck!" Kankuro shouts, his face pale for a second. "Can't you just listen to your older brother for once?"

The next finger breaks.

"I never considered you as my brother."

"Stop it, Kankuro." Temari says. "They're gone."

"Gladly." Kankuro spits out, cradling his injured hand against his chest.

Gaara's anger at being denied his prey just seems to increase.

"Look, Gaara." Temari says. She doesn't want Kankuro hurt any more. Though it was his own idiot fault. They both know Gaara well enough not to challenge him. "This is pointless. We have to appear as a team, even if you hate both of us, for the mission. Take it out on the orange boy later if you want, not us."

The way Gaara's eyes light up at the mention shows she's hit the right note.

They find the exit that evening, with no more problems.

The rest of the week is passes slowly, waiting for the other contestants to exit the forest.

"They're incompetent." Temari says.

"Maybe they've all died." Kankuro says.

"Save us the trouble."

"Killed by a giant spider."

Temari raises an eyebrow.

"Hey, it must be called the Forest of Death for a reason, and not just from the Chuunin exams!"

Temari's trying to figure out how she should combat the vapour-thing the Amegakure genin used, in retrospect. Wind didn't work. Maybe it had no defense except avoidance. Very useful then. Could a solid barrier like Gaara's sand stop it? The sand didn't seem affected by it at all. It must have to reach a human to affect them. Pity she couldn't experiment with it now.

"If they all die, someone's going to be annoyed." Temari says.

"Don't I know it," Kankuro says, waving his bandaged fingers at her.

"Why did you push him like that?" Temari asks. It's an honest question. She doesn't understand why - how - Kankuro dared.

He shrugs. Temari waits, starts cleaning her fan.

"Just wanted him to acknowledge us, I suppose."

"I'd rather stay under the radar, where Gaara's concerned."

"You would."

"Kankuro." She says and smiles, waves her fingers at him.

"Shut up."

They settle into a companionable silence. They're sitting outside in the sun, so they can watch the contestants emerging. And today, the orange boy's team is walking back. They look a lot worse for wear.

The girl's hair is cut short and ragged. They're all covered in scratches and dirt. The dark-haired boy keeps reaching up to his neck, touching- what, a tattoo? Both of them are limping a bit. The orange boy doesn't seem hurt at all, just a bit scruffy. Kankuro's a bit annoyed by this. Even he managed to trap the kid up before, yet here he is coming out of the Forest of Death entirely unharmed?

Well, perhaps Gaara will have fun after all.


	3. To let go of the air

Eventually the week is over and everyone is accounted for, in one way or another. In a way, it's a pity they hadn't stayed in the forest longer, to figure out the various strengths and weaknesses of their competitors. But then all the competitors would be dead and the purpose useless. Gaara seems happy - as far as he can be happy - that the orange boy made it through. It's creepy. Kankuro can't remember a time when Gaara actually been interested in someone for more than an hour (by the end of that hour, they're usually dead). Well, except with Yashamaru but then he ended up dead as well. As the orange kid will, soon.

They're going to be fighting individually in this third and final stage. The preliminaries are first, to eliminate the weak ones further, who might have hidden behind their teams before.

2\. KANKURO VS HYUUGA HINATA.

4\. TEMARI VS TENTEN.

7\. GAARA VS ROCK LEE.

The other matches Temari notes are;

3\. UZUMAKI NARUTO VS INUZUKA KIBA.

6\. UCHIHA SASUKE VS HYUUGA NEJI.

Gaara is disappointed of course, not to get Naruto straight away. Temari thinks it's good. The prelims will eliminate the chaff and if the orange boy is useless, he'll be safer out of Gaara's way.

"I have to fight a girl!" Kankuro complains. Temari folds her arms, almost imitating Gaara;

"Last time I checked, I was a girl and I still beat you." Temari says, amused.

"You don't count!"

Oh, this was an interesting little weakness of Kankuro's, Temari thought.

"How so?"

"Well, look at her! She's about as threatening as a mouse,"

"I'm sure you'll manage."

"It's not that. I want a proper fight."

"It's only the prelims. Besides, at least you didn't get Gaara and have to withdraw altogether."

Small mercies.

Both Gaara's and Temari's opponents are on the same team, so Temari decided to do some research. Although Gaara hardly needed it.

She found out that Rock Lee was dead-last, hopeless at ninjutsu and an expert at taijutsu, And that he was strange - they seem to encourage weirdness in Konoha - with an irritatingly upbeat manner and dressed in green spandex. Temari wondered if the orange boy and Rock Lee belonged to the same club. She doubted Gaara would have any trouble with him. The girl, Tenten, was a bit more interesting. She practiced with multiple weapons and seemed proficient in all of them. Quality over quantity though, Temari thought a little smugly.

Because she was bored, she also researched the little Hyuuga girl. Kankuro was right of course. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Couldn't hurt a fly, on that matter. Her only strength was the hereditary Byakugan she had.

Uchiha had the Sharingan. Hyuuga Neji the Byakugan again, though he was a lot better at it than the Hyuuga girl. Inuzuka and the Hyuuga girl were actually the team that Kankuro stopped Gaara from killing in the forest; Temari recognized the dog that followed the Inuzuka everywhere. Interesting. She passed that tit-bit onto Kankuro, who laughed.

"Maybe I can ask her to honour the debt and give up at the beginning."

But they are shinobi and everyone knows shinobi don't even recognize the word honour.

"You did it for her? How sweet." Temari taunts.

"Pity I'm not going against you." Kankuro says.

As predicated, Hyuuga Hinata was not winning. There's a difference between Konoha and Suna nins already but Hinata is on the far end of the "mercy" scale. She can't even bring herself to hurt her own sister - Kankuro doesn't know this little fact but he would be flummoxed if he did; aren't your siblings the ones you actually want to hurt the most?

Anyway, now the Hyuuga girl is lying in the dirt of the arena, looking almost like she's going to cry. Kankuro's disappointed but he expected this. Just thought the power of the legendery Byakugan would get her going a little longer.

"No, Hinata, get up!" The yell is from the stands. Kankuro doesn't even bother to turn and see who it was. He already knows. Idiot orange kid number one.

Kankuro found he was looking forwards to seeing Gaara destroy him. Didn't he ever shut up? Bloody hell, it wasn't even his match!

"You can't give up, Hinata!" Naruto shouts. Kankuro watches, annoyed, at the Hyuuga slowly pulls herself up again. She's a wreck. She can't fight anymore. Kankuro turns and stares at the proctor, waiting for the judgement, but he doesn't say anything.

Do I have to kill her, Kankuro wonders. He doesn't want to, particularly. It wasn't even a good fight and it's only in good fights that killing an enemy is satisfying. This would be like killing a child. Sure, he doesn't like children much, but there are limits. He watches her, wondering what to do. She can't even activate the Byakugan any more and the Jyuuken strikes she got, while well done, weren't enough. One of Kankuro's arms is dead, but he's still got his other arm and his puppet. While Hinata has- what? The strength of her convictions? A near suicidal trust in the orange boy? Kankuro's broken an arm and some fingers, specifically so she can't do Jyuuken any more. Kakazu's thrown her across the arena a couple of times as well, and that's got to hurt.

Maybe I'll have to break a leg, Kankuro thinks. She shouldn't really be a chuunin or a genin for that matter, anyway. She's too weak. Not a touch of killing intent or ruthlessness. Kankuro very much doubts she's ever killed anyone. She's lucky she's not facing Gaara. He would have just killed her out of disgust.

He supposes he can just knock her out. That'll silence any protests from her or the orange boy.

So he does just that. Walks up to her slowly, in case she's got any tricks up her sleeve. Then surges suddenly and punches her on the side of her head.

Out like a light.

"No, Hinata, get up!" the orange boy shouts. Kankuro's estimation of his stupidity goes up even further. Then the proctor, realizing she really isn't going to get up this time, announces Kankuro the winner.

It's a sour sort of victory.

The Hyuuga girl gets taken off by the medics, and when Kankuro gets up to the stands, the orange boy literally tries to attack him. Kankuro actually surprised. 85% stupid then. The other Konoha genins hold him back while he shouts uninspired insults and other garbled words at Kankuro's back. Utterly boring. Kankuro is used to Gaara's threats and the orange boy has nothing on Gaara. He goes and stands next to Temari, who's talking to a blonde Konoha kunoichi.

"She should have just given up." The girl says to Kankuro.

Maybe there's some hope of sanity in this weird village, Temari thinks.

"What an idiot." Kankuro says.

"Don't worry, I hate him too." The girl smiles.

"This is Yamanaka Ino." Temari says.

Kankuro nods at her.

"And he's next. Any chance we get to see the shit beaten out of him?"

Ino shrugs.

"Don't get your hopes up."

Ino's right in the end. The orange boy somehow manages to win his match. At one point though, he pulls on his spirit's chakra, like Gaara does with Shukaku. Gaara stands up, clenches the bar at the edge of the stand. Kankuro and Temari watch him, very carefully. But then the chakra disappears again and Gaara sits back down. They sigh a breath of relief.

Kankuro asks Ino about Uzumaki's impressive healing ability. He knows it might have to do with the spirit but they've never had that problem with Gaara so he doesn't know. And it would be good to know if anyone realises the asset under their noses. Knowing Konoha, probably not.

"It's because he's a pest." Ino says. "We can never get rid of him."

"No really, it's pretty strong."

"No idea. He's always like that, I suppose. Ask Sakura; I don't really know him."

Sakura is apparently the name of the pink girl. How predictably apt. Did her parents have no imagination at all

"Hey, so you're the idiot's team-mate!" Kankuro says to her. They seem to speak the same language because she nods.

"What's that like? How many times do you want to kill him in a day?"

"Too many." Sakura says sourly. Then gazes at the dark-haired boy, which seems to cheer her up again. Her eyes start to glaze over.

"Isn't it weird though, how he heals so quickly?"

"That's Naruto, always finding a way to be annoying."

"Does he think the Hyuuga girl's like him then?" Kankuro asks but the pink girl is frowning now. "You know, the 'don't give up' thing, cuz it would only work for people who can heal quickly."

"Hinata's a friend."

"Sure, sure, sorry. Just interested, first time in Konohagakure and all that."

"And well no, she's not like him. He's an idiot."

Kankuro laughs. "Definitely agreeing with that." He's annoyed though. He's not getting anywhere with this thread of inquiry. Either she doesn't know about the spirit - which is possible, given her obvious obsession with the dark-haired boy - or she knows but is not allowed to tell. He's obviously not a weapon in the same way as Gaara is. Everyone inside and out of Suna know Gaara is the container for Shukaku. It's good for scaring off possible enemies. Good for business, because they can use Gaara's infamy to negotiate higher prices for their team on missions. But not so with the orange boy.

"I don't think the kids know," Kankuro says to Temari later.

"Obsessed much? Go and join the club." Temari says, pointing to Gaara's room.

Kankuro scoffs.

"It's important." He says; for the invasion. "We need to win, and I don't like wild cards."

"He hasn't managed to impress me."

"What's got your knickers in a twist?"

"Oh, fuck off."

"Really?"

"It's just- It." Temari eventually manages to say. "Do you actually think we'll succeed?"

"Not my plan, is it," Kankuro shrugs.

"Grow up, this is going to affect all of us."

Kankuro waits.

"It's such a waste, for what was working fine anyway." She says. Why destroy a stable alliance, for so little gains?

"Come on, Temari, you can't talk like that."

"I know! I just- I hope we lose."

Kankuro doesn't know what to say to that. But he's thinking about it now, and he can see what Temari means. How exactly is the Kazekage going to control two villages - and with the added danger from Amegakure turning on them? And why? Sure, more money but also a lot more trouble. Shinobi aren't the most obedient of people and Konoha's weirder than most.

He doesn't really want to invade, like he didn't want to kill the Hyuuga girl, despite the chance to beat up the annoying orange boy. But in this matter he doesn't have a choice; he has to follow orders.


End file.
